Anne Lamott
American novelist, memoirist, and one of the most beloved contemporary voices on faith, recovery, writing, and the practice of being human. Born in 1954 in San Francisco and raised by atheist intellectual parents, she came to her own idiosyncratic Presbyterian faith through addiction recovery and the slow work of single motherhood. Her books — Bird by Bird (1994, the most-quoted contemporary book on writing), Operating Instructions, Traveling Mercies, Plan B, Help Thanks Wow (2012), Hallelujah Anyway, Almost Everything, Dusk Night Dawn, and most recently Somehow (2024) — have brought a generation of readers to a form of contemplative life that doesn't require leaving New Jersey or Oakland or your messy kitchen. Her three essential prayers — Help, Thanks, and Wow — have become contemporary spiritual shorthand.
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Quotes by Anne Lamott
106 quotes“There are things in our lives that we will never make peace with. We are still going to be okay.”
“Grief is love's souvenir. It is the proof we ever loved.”
“To love and be loved is the only thing that matters in the end.”
“You become what you behold.”
“Watch yourself with kindness.”
“There is no time, place, or substance that can keep me from the love of God.”
“Pray for the patience of trees.”
“Trees know how to wait.”
“In the silence after the prayer, the answer often arrives.”
“Help is a complete prayer.”
“Thanks is a complete prayer.”
“Wow is a complete prayer.”
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
“Faith is showing up to the lab again, expecting nothing.”
“You can't think your way to grace.”
“Surrender is the secret. The hard part is the doing of it.”
“Grace is the unmerited gift. Receive it.”
“My friend Jack says recovery is the slow accumulation of yes.”
“Sobriety is just learning how to feel.”
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